“Damn it.” Alex stiffened and braced for a confrontation. He’d hoped to make it out of Antonio’s without incident. But it looked as if Sal had other plans.
The older man hurried toward him, still shouting, mindless of the other customers or his employees’ fascinated attention. Sal Conti was sixty-two, but he was still pretty spry. About five feet eleven inches tall, he was a little shorter than Alex, and slender. His brown eyes were flashing and his cheeks were filled with furious color.
“What are you doing here?” Sal demanded. “Spying? This is what the Barones have come to now?”
Okay, fine. Alex hadn’t wanted a scene, but he’d be damned if he’d stand here and let his family be insulted.
“Spying?” he retorted, standing his ground. “Are all of you Contis paranoid? Or is it just you?”
“Paranoid?” Sal waved that towel furiously, shaking his other fist in the air. “You can talk of paranoid? After what your family’s done to mine?”
“What we’ve done? You know damn well it was the Contis behind that gelato fiasco.”
“Ridiculous,” Sal snapped.
“And as long as we’re at it,” Alex added, meeting the older man’s narrowed gaze with a glare of his own, “I still think your family was behind the arson.”
Sal huffed in a breath until his narrow chest swelled. “Slander.” He shot a quick look around at his customers and waved that towel again. “You all heard him. That’s slander. The Contis were cleared by the police. That’s a vicious lie the Barones toss around to make us look bad.”
Alex snorted in laughter. “Believe it or not, we don’t sit around thinking about the Contis. Besides, you do a great job of looking bad all on your own.”
“The Contis have done nothing. We don’t need to bring bad fortune onto the Barones.” He waved a hand toward the ceiling and the night sky beyond. “It’s in the stars. You’re all ill-fated.”
Ill-fated. Bad fortune. This whole Italian curse thing had been rattling around between their two families for years, and Alex, for one, was tired of it.
“No such thing as fate,” he said.
“Sal…” Daisy moved toward her boss. Taking his arm, she gave it a tug, as if she was used to dealing with the older man’s flash temper. Which, Alex thought, she probably was.
But Sal shook her off, and Daisy sighed.
“Stay out of this, Daisy,” Alex muttered, and took her arm to pull her back beside him.
Sal noticed the move and his features darkened with fury. “You leave her alone. She’s a nice girl and she doesn’t need a Barone in her life.”
“You’re nuts, you know that?” Alex retorted. Hell, for that matter, so was he. He was standing here having a shouting match with a man more than twice his age. Swiping one hand across his face, he got a grip and swallowed back the rest of the anger churning inside him.
Damn it, this was one of the reasons he’d joined the military. No one in the navy cared who his family was. No one was impressed that he came from wealth. He’d joined the service right out of college, with one thought in mind: to get away from Boston and the never-ending feud between the Barones and the Contis. It had been going on for years and showed no sign of ending. If anything, the troubles between the families had picked up recently. What with the fire and the disaster involving the new flavor gelato, the Barones were on red alert at all times and looking for Contis under every rock.
Alex was tired of the potshots and anger. But he was also a Barone and he owed the family his loyalty, even though he thought the adults on both sides were idiots.
Now what he had to do was find a way out of here, fast. He shot a quick glance around the restaurant. Curious stares pinned him in place, but his friends were nowhere to be seen. They’d already gone outside by the time Sal Conti had lost his mind. Alex glanced at Daisy, saw her confusion and wished he could explain all of this to her. But who’d believe him?
In this day and age, who would expect two completely respectable, intelligent families to be so involved in a vendetta?
“You get out of my place,” Sal told him hotly.
“Hey, I was just going.”
“And you don’t pay for your meal. We don’t need Barone money.”
Disgusted, Alex said, “I’m not taking anything from the Contis.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Daisy muttered, stepping between the two men, only to be pushed gently aside by Sal. You couldn’t work at Antonio’s without learning about Sal Conti’s quick, volcanic temper. But Daisy was also well aware that the man didn’t have a violent bone in his body and that his temper disappeared as swiftly as it erupted.
But in this case she was pretty sure both men were nuts. Standing in the middle of a nice restaurant yelling at each other about ill fortune and curses was just crazy, no matter how you looked at it.
“You go sit down, Daisy,” the older man said absently. “Get off your feet for a while.”
She groaned, winced a bit and whispered, “I think it’s too late for that.”
A heartbeat or two passed before both men turned as one to look at her. At any other moment, she would have thought their twin expressions of sheer terror were funny. However, at the moment she had other things on her mind.
Daisy felt the contraction grab hold of the middle of her back and twist her spine into a pretzel. Every square inch of her suddenly erupted with a deep, throbbing pain that seemed to blossom and grow with every passing second. This was nothing like the annoying little twinges she’d been experiencing.
This was the kind of labor pain they wrote books about.
“I think I need to go home. Call the midwife,” she whispered.
“Oh boy,” Sal muttered, reaching for her left arm just as Alex grabbed her right. “You’re okay, honey,” her boss continued. Then he shouted, “Tony!”
Someone in the kitchen yelled back, “Yeah?”
“Call an ambulance. Call a hospital. Call somebody!”
Daisy managed a chuckle at the panic in Sal’s voice, but when the contraction ended and was quickly chased by another, stronger one, that laughter faded into a low, deep moan of misery.
“I’ll take her to the hospital,” Alex said, and she shifted a glance at him. Navy pilot and a hero.
“No you won’t,” Sal countered, pulling Daisy closer to him. “We don’t need help from a Barone.”
“I’m not helping you,” Alex pointed out. He gave her arm a little tug, pulling her to his side. “I’m helping her.”
“What is this,” Daisy asked, yanking free of both of them, “a tug-of-war?”
“Hey, boss,” Tony yelled from the kitchen. “Ambulance’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”
“Cancel it,” Alex shouted, then looked down at Daisy. “I’ll get you to the hospital. Let me help. Trust me.”
She stared up into those chocolate-brown eyes of his and read determination there, along with an eagerness to help. And right then Daisy wanted all the help she could get. Besides, waiting fifteen minutes for an ambulance seemed like a lifetime.
“Okay,” she whispered, dropping one hand to her belly. “Okay, good. Let’s go.”
“Daisy, I think—”
“It’s all right, Sal.” She looked at the older man who’d been so kind to her and forced a smile for his benefit. “I don’t want to wait for the ambulance and— Ohhh…” She bent over, cradling her unborn child and biting her bottom lip to stifle the moan clogging her throat.
“That’s it,” Alex muttered, scooping her up into his arms. “We’re outta here.”
Waiters, customers and kitchen staff called out good wishes as Alex headed for the front door. The hostess rushed ahead and held the door open for him, reaching out to give Daisy’s arm a pat as they passed.
Out on the street, Alex paused, Daisy in his arms, and looked to where the guys should have been waiting in their rental car.
Only one problem.
It wasn’t there.
And neither were the guys.
“Oh, man…”
“What?” Daisy lifted her head from his shoulder.
“I think the guys took off.”
“They left you behind?”
Alex grimaced and hitched her slight form a little higher in his arms. Amazing. Even pregnant, she was so slight, so fragile that she seemed to weigh almost nothing. But even as tiny as she was, it would be a long run to the closest hospital. Damn you, guys.
“Yeah,” he said tightly, finally answering her question. “We do that sometimes. Go somewhere, then abandon one of the guys to make his own way back to the base.”
“Why?”
He glanced at those blue-green eyes and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “A joke. One I used to think was pretty funny.”
“Swell.”
Then she inhaled sharply and Alex felt her body tense. Terror rippled along his spine. He had to get her to help. Fast. “Cab. We need a cab.”
And since he needed one, naturally there wasn’t a single taxi to be seen. Ordinarily, a man could cross any Boston street by walking across the hoods of the cabs waiting in traffic. But not tonight. On this warm summer night, the air was still and so were the streets.
As horrible thoughts of running back into the restaurant to ask Sal for help raced through his brain, Alex realized exactly where they were. If he’d had a free hand, he’d have slapped himself in the forehead.
“No problem,” he said, “we’re good.” He started walking at a long-legged, hurried pace.
“Where are you going?” Daisy demanded, already seeing the lights of Antonio’s slip into the distance. The hospital was uptown and he was headed in the wrong direction.
“My sister’s place,” he muttered.
“Your sister?”
“Just a couple blocks away. She’s a registered nurse. She’ll know what to do.”
“Are you kidding?” Daisy dug her fingers into his shoulder and talked through a pain that seemed strong enough to tear her in half. “I know what to do. Get to the hospital and deliver this baby.”
“I know. I know. But there aren’t any cabs—”
“The ambulance—”
“Look,” he said as he kept moving, “we could go back to the restaurant and wait for the ambulance. Or we could go about a block and wait for an ambulance. My way, we’ll have a registered nurse there to help. Which beats having a busboy or Sal deliver your baby.”
“Okay, that makes sense.”
He gave her a squeeze and moved even faster. “Trust me, okay? It’ll be good. I’ll take care of you.”
“Why are you doing this? You don’t even know me.”
He looked at her. “Does it matter right now?”
She met those dark, deep eyes and heard herself say, “No. No, it doesn’t matter.”
As the next contraction rippled through her body, Daisy surrendered. She was in no position to hop out of his arms and race down the street, trying to find a cab on her own. Even if she’d wanted to. Which she didn’t. For some reason, it felt good having him near. Being held as if she were something precious. Someone to be cherished. It had been so long….
No, that wasn’t right. She’d never felt like this before. No one had ever cherished her. No one had ever truly cared. Not even the man she’d thought would love her forever. The man who’d given her a baby, then run off and gotten himself killed the moment he’d found out about the pregnancy.
She pushed thoughts of Jeff out of her mind. It wouldn’t do any good to go back down that road. That time was over and done, and a whole new world was about to open up to her.
If she could just make it through labor.
Alex moved quickly. Streetlamps haloed the sidewalk with a soft, ivory light and a cool evening breeze slid in off the ocean, lightening the humidity like a gift from God. Up and down the street, people went about their business, completely ignoring the tall man with a pregnant woman in his arms. A group of kids skateboarded around them like a wave cresting around a buoy, but Daisy hardly noticed. She was much too involved with what was happening to her own body to care about anything else.
“Hang on, okay?” Alex whispered. “It’s not far now.”
“Boy, I hope not.” Her fingers tightened on his shoulder again, then slowly, fractionally, relaxed. “I’m not an expert or anything, but I think this is it.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“No, I mean now.” Daisy felt as though everything inside her was struggling to push its way out of her body. And in the classes she’d taken, that was pretty much D hour. D as in delivery.
“Oh man, don’t say that.” He glanced down at her and held her more tightly to him. “Please don’t say that.”
“This isn’t exactly how I’d planned to do this, you know.”
“I know. But it’s really close. I swear. Just hold on, okay?”
“The pains are coming so fast. Really strong, too.” She tipped her head to look at him. In the glow of the streetlamp, his face seemed to pale a little, but Daisy told herself it was probably a trick of the lighting. At least, she hoped so. She didn’t want to think that he was as scared as she was.
Heck, somebody should be in charge here.
“Don’t push.”
“What?”
“Breathe, breathe. Pant. You know.” Then he demonstrated, and Daisy had to laugh despite the pain lancing through her middle.
“And where’d you learn that, fly boy?”
“Hey, I have a TV. I’ve seen movies.” He grinned, but didn’t look down at her. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, as if he could see his destination and wasn’t about to be distracted from reaching his goal. “I know all of that stuff. Boil water. Pant. Don’t push. Push.”
“Well gee,” she said, with a laugh that drifted into a moan, “I feel much better now. I had no idea you were an expert.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like to brag.”
“An unusual man.”
“Funny,” he said, sparing her a quick glance as he rounded a corner and quickened his pace. “Just don’t push anything out yet, whatever you do.” He glanced both ways at the sporadic traffic, before sprinting across the street toward an old brownstone. “We’re almost there. See? That’s it.”
Daisy held on to his broad shoulders and listened to the steady beat of his heart beneath her cheek. How strange. Two hours ago, she hadn’t known this man existed. Now, on the biggest night of her life, he was all that stood between her and delivering her baby on the street, alone.
And though she should have been worried—after all, he was a complete stranger—she wasn’t. There was almost a sense of peace in being held in his arms. As if it was where she belonged.
Okay, hysteria is probably not a good sign.
Where she belonged?
What was she thinking? Obviously, imminent birth put a strain on one’s faculties.
He stopped in front of the well-kept old brownstone, and Daisy smiled in spite of the pain. She loved these old buildings. There was so much character, so much history in every single brick. It was one of her dreams to one day buy a run-down place and bring it back to life, help it to regain some of its past glory. Just as someone had done here.
In the glow of the porch light, Daisy looked at the dark red front door and the petunia-filled window boxes lining the front windows. A tiny garden, bursting with colorful blooms, filled the postage stamp-size plot between the brownstone and the sidewalk. The combined scents of summer flowers swept into the air, and Daisy inhaled them with her next deep breath.
Alex climbed the short steps, reached out and punched a buzzer, holding the button down with a steady, insistent pressure.
“If you don’t let up on that button,” Daisy reminded him tightly, “they can’t answer, you know.”
“Right. Right.” He let it go and waited, tapping one foot on the concrete steps with a staccato rhythm that danced along his body and filtered into hers.
“Hey!” A disembodied voice floated out of the intercom. “Take it easy on the buzzer, huh?”
“Rita?” Alex’s voice finally sounded strained, and Daisy couldn’t help but be impressed that he’d managed to stay calm up until now. “It’s me. Open the damn door, will you?”
“Alex?” The unseen woman’s voice sharpened with concern. “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”
“Do I sound all right?” He shook his head, muttered, “Sisters,” then more loudly, he ordered, “Open the door, damn it.”
A buzz sounded and the door snicked open. Alex pushed it wider with his foot. Stepping into the foyer, he kicked it shut behind him, then looked straight up.
Daisy matched his gaze, staring up the stairwell, following the line of the polished wood banisters that swept up and up the center of the four-story building. At the third floor, a woman’s head suddenly appeared over the railing.
“Alex? What on earth is—” She broke off and gasped, so loudly that Daisy heard her sharp intake of breath.
“Rita,” he called, “help.”
“Oh my goodness.” She took in the scene in an instant and just as quickly began issuing orders. “Take the elevator, Alex. Go up to Gina’s apartment. It’s empty. I’ll alert Maria and we’ll meet you there.”
“Right.”
“Who’s that?” Daisy asked, shifting her gaze to his face again.
“My sister the nurse. We’ll call an ambulance and Rita can help till it gets here.”
“Okay, good.” Daisy glanced at the well-appointed reception area as he raced with her across the room. Overstuffed beige furniture was lined up against ivory walls. An ice-blue area rug lay in the center of the space, under a huge glass-and-oak table. Pale blue pillows were tossed here and there, giving the room a warm, inviting feel and the scent of fresh cut flowers filled the air. It was cozy, comfortable and peaceful.
But before she could notice much more, Alex was at the old-fashioned elevator, pushing back the iron gate and stepping inside.
“How old is this thing?” she asked warily as he stabbed the fourth-floor button and the elevator lurched into motion.
“Don’t worry. My dad made sure the elevator was brand-new and up to specs. He wouldn’t trust his girls to some ancient elevator. He just liked the antique look.”
“Glad to hear it.” Truthfully, though, Daisy was just glad there was an elevator. With the pain now a constant companion, there was no way she would have been able to climb four flights of stairs.
When the elevator stopped and Alex threw the iron gate open, the first thing Daisy saw was his sister’s sympathetic smile. “You poor thing. Don’t you worry about anything, all right? You’re safe.”
Strange, Daisy thought. But she’d felt safe since the moment she’d first seen Alex back at Antonio’s.